Social communicative variation in 1–3‐year‐olds with severe visual impairment

Background Although the social communicative domain is recognized as being at risk in young children with visual impairment ( VI ), few tools are available for identifying those most at risk or the aspects that are most vulnerable. Methods A standard parent interview – Social Communication Interview for young children with visual impairment ( SOCI‐VI ), was developed and tested with 55 parents of 17 profoundly, 15 severely VI and 23 normally sighted children; mean age 22 months (range 10–40 months). The 35‐item SOCI‐VI 35 showed adequate inter‐rater and test–retest reliability ( P < 0.001). Results Thirteen of 35 items discriminated within and between the vision groups ( anova P 0.008). The group with profound VI scored significantly lower than the Sighted group on the reduced 13 item SOCI‐VI 13 ( t ‐test P 0.002), the disparity being greatest for items exploring joint attention. The reduced SOCI‐VI 13 showed adequate internal consistency ( C ronbach alpha > 0.75) and concurrent validity with the V ineland adaptation questionnaire within a randomized VI subgroup (r 0.8, P < 0.01). Conclusions The study reveals trends in early social communicative development in the young VI population and provides preliminary reliability and validity testing for future research within a clinical context.